Re: Why did it take them so long to start

They expend those millions looking for the craft so that they can determine what exactly brought the plane down. You can say pilot error was "most likely" but you can't know that's what brought it down.

There are plenty of instances in which pilot error was assumed to be the cause of a plan crash, only for the subsequent investigation to discover extremely dangerous flaws in the aircraft design, or in operating procedures, or flight operation manuals, or any number of other things.

The possibility that there are planes flying around with potentially fatal design flaws is why they keep looking until all options are exhausted.

Even if it turns out to be pilot error, the money wasn't wasted. They can then understand why the pilots made their mistakes and mitigate that in future with improved training.

Re: Compensation?

Ok, late as it is, I'm going to explain this to my downvoter because apparently they don't understand money.

There is a pool of tax money extracted from the general population, corporations and so on, from which a small amount is taken to pay for this service. That money is taken and paid no matter what.

Assume Google don't offer to pay directly. The tax money - which includes taxes that Google paid already - is used to pay for the costs of this excursion. Google theoretically pays indirectly for the outcome.

Now we take the reality: google offer to pay directly. Their money pays directly for the whole thing. Lets assume they then write it off at 100%. In this scenario the amount of money sloshing around hasn't changed. All that has changed is that google directly pays the emergency services rather than paying that money into the general tax pool, from which the services are subsequently paid.

Either way, google pays.

The only way to see this as a net loss is to assume that the government deserves the tax money that google hypothetically wrote off, which is such a bloody stupid assumption that I don't even know where to begin.

Re: Pound sign

Re: Oxford’s destruction of English continues unabashed

Quite so. English is a living and evolving language, and as long as it remains free of that awful urge to artificial limitation, it shall remain a living language. Oh Homer is probably the sort that would be complaining about Thug, Curry and Doolally entering the language in the late 19th century.

Re: Gentlemen NEVER discuss a lady's age

Every time an article like this comes up all the comments go right for the same tired old clichés about creationists. I get it. You don't like them. Well done. Now go and have an original thought for once instead of just rehashing the same boring rubbish and crap "jokes". Or better yet, talk about the thing in the article. You know, the science? The actual interesting stuff?

Re: Niven has this one covered

@Ledswinger Re: Thoughts

I have plenty of negative things to say about electric cars. Their silence, however, is not something I would complain about.

Besides, an IC car travelling under 30 is virtually silent from the front until it gets quite close. You'll hear the road noise before the engine. Maybe all cars should have some sort of artificial noise-maker fitted to them? Perhaps something that can be activated by the driver...

@dan1980

Re: The man is correct

Of course learning Latin in particular sets a pretty good foundation for learning most of the Romance languages. My wife studied Latin to the Swedish equivalent of sixth-form level, and now she tells me that her perception of the Romance languages is as essentially dialects of Latin, which makes it pretty easy for her to switch between them in conversations. It's quite scary when she does.

It also sets a very solid foundation for general language skills, even if does sometimes lead to needless pedantry about the splitting of infinitives...

Or, to look at it another way, your objection to learning programming to GCSE level could also easily apply to the other core subjects. Not everyone needs to learn French. Not everyone needs to learn chemistry. Not everyone needs to learn physics. They do anyway, because it's a general education. Specialisation happens afterwards.

Re: Hmmm

Well that isn't going to happen. If they want to be bought out they should develop a simple messenger app backed on to, I don't know, a website where you can make playmobil reconstructions, and market it as the next big thing to 15 year-olds wanting to send pictures of their naughty bits to one another.

They'll never get there experimenting with novel technologies. It just gets in the way, you know?

Re: Terry Pratchett gets the patent though...

There's a lot of fascinating stuff in those books. I shouldn't be surprised really - Bringing two of writing's greatest minds and smashing them together between a single hardcover was bound to produce something spectacular.

Ah but the thing is, when you're writing you don't want to be distracted by petty things like spelling and grammar. That's something you worry about when you're editing afterwards (before you send it to the editor for ritual dismemberment).

Writing and editing are fundamentally different modes of thought. When you're writing you don't want to be interrupted, and the squiggly red lines and things are all distractions that interrupt the flow of your thoughts.

Re: I wonder if...

In four years SpaceX will be well into the general commercial market anyway. They're using the ISS trips to test Dragon for eventual use in their own plans for Mars - the government money is just gravy.

Re: Copyrights protection for real code vs patents of trivial ideas - what is more evil?

The difference there was that Microsoft licensed the java trademarks and IP to create their own VM with the Java name attached to it. They were contractually obliged to implement the full spec. When they didn't implement the spec properly and left it broken, they were in breach of that contract, and Sun sued over improper use of trademarks and copyrights for the actual substance of the machine.

Not the API.

Google didn't enter a license agreement with Sun/Oracle. Instead they created their own Virtual Machine called Dalvik, which implements a subset of the Java API. They don't use the Java trademarks.

In Microsoft's case, they breached contract. In Google's case there was no contract to breach. The situation isn't even remotely comparable.

Re: This:

I rarely listen to the radio these days - since Wogan quit the morning show I've really not had much interest (which says plenty about me, I suppose) but sometimes, just sometimes, I end up listening to the Jeremy Vine show and I always regret it. You can usually work out what the BBC's editorial line is on a subject by which of his guests he decides to argue with.

Re: Yo, Jason!

Ok, so all these cars with built-in mobile telephony for their nav and streaming media and whatnot, all those people using properly secure phones or tablets as GPS, or hands-free, or passengers using their devices, or all those GPS devices that use the same frequencies to provide live updates for traffic information...

Re: I thought Space-X were supposed to be making space flight cheaper...

The reason the space shuttle cost so much was because it was operationally crippled by requirements imposed on it by the US military. They wanted cross-range capability and cargo return abilities that the shuttle never actually ended up using.

Basically, government meddling and "big bang" project implementation. The entire thing was an experimental vehicle that wasn't expected to stay in use for as long as it did.

Musk's plan is to introduce re-usability incrementally, which is a much more sensible option. He's already brought the cost of space flight down significantly. Being able to return and re-use the stage engines will bring that cost down even further.

Re: So...

Re: @article author: reading comprehension FAIL

From the spec itself*:

"A user agent may allow the user to override an element's autofill field name, e.g. to change it from "off" to "on" to allow values to be remembered and prefilled despite the page author's objections, or to always "off", never remembering values. However, user agents should not allow users to trivially override the autofill field name from "off" to "on" or other values, as there are significant security implications for the user if all values are always remembered, regardless of the site's preferences."

In other words, google are following the spec to the letter on this one.